Feeding the Local Devils Trash

Yesterday posted again about trash. I used to think of it as a cosmetic problem but, especially after seeing the documentary Trashed, I realized how insidious the global trash problem is and how there is a continuum from litter to microscopic plastic particles in the oceans and awful chemicals like dioxins.  And no one can say it's a local problem because the world is a big soup which mixes itself constantly.
People here make daily offerings to the spirits to encourage the good and placate the bad ones. I talked to a reggae rapper from Flores about creating a song that says litter is an offering to bolster the evil spirits, that throwing plastic waste in waterways is feeding the island devils, creating suffering and awful karma. We're all doing it all over the world. What else is evil other than behavior that causes harm? He encouraged me to work on it. Maybe. Or maybe it would just be more trash.

Finally did that song: Offerings (Persembahan Persembahan)

Trash in Indonesia again

There's a tiny piece in the Sanur Weekly that the Buleleng River is clogged with trash. Nothing on the Internet about that but

Here's a piece from the Daily Mail on a trash-clogged river in Java

Aloe Vera

There are many Nyoman here in Bali, male and female like all Bali names as far as I know.
There's Nyoman mabuk (drunk Nyoman as he told me to remember him) who helps the folks next door sometimes. And there's bemo driver Nyoman Dogen - easy to remember cause Dogen is the founder of Soto Zen in Japan though he didn't like to think of it as a distinct sect. Nyoman Dogen never heard of Dogen from Japan. Yesterday while I was in Satvika Bogha getting some cashews and farm fresh eggs, Nyoman was snipping some of their aloe vera to take home. He told me it's good for many ailments. I told him we used to keep it in the kitchens of Zen Center in case someone got burned and we did so because it worked so well. He asked, "Oh, you've got this plant in America?" I told him yeah, I was surprised to see it here.  [We weren't using any plant names - must ask] - DC

Indonesia Drug Deaths - tobacco #1 and alcohol #2 for sure

Here's a good brief article on Indonesia drug deaths, published yesterday in the Jakarta Post eight days after Indonesia executed six foreigners for smuggling some drugs in. Some more executions are coming soon. Linked to an article recently on this on cuke.com's saunters - 1-16-15.  Just saw Amanpour CNN interview with Prez Joko Widodo where she asked about the executions and he said that 50 (last time 40) people a day die from narcotics so zero tolerance. She only mentioned that some nations had withdrawn diplomats, no hard questions following up. Fluff. - DC

My computer still in hospital.

My computer in hospital so we started this blogger page for new posts. - DC

This is a Cuke Blogger page

Hi. My dear little Zenbook is in the shop and so we are running cuke.com out of Blogger now cause I have to use Katrinka's Mac and need a web based way to do it.
Thanks to Peter Ford for getting it all set up. We're emailing back and forth from just about opposite sides of the world so there tend to be twelve hours or so between messages. So this is sort of cuke blogger. Might keep using it for a while to see what we can do with it. - DC

Indonesian visa extension

Doing our visa extensions this month rather than hiring someone.
Nyoman drove me to the Immigration office and it was packed, lines outside just to get a number. They just had two days half off after a weekend - Hindu ceremonial something. But my first step in doing this was last time to spend some time with the woman who took care of it whom I happened to meet because we had to go in for new photos and fingerprints. So, urging Nyoman to stick with me, walked past everyone up to the glass door behind which the staff are working in their new modernized office, stopped a woman in uniform walking in there and asked if she'd let Ibu Siri (Ms Siri) know I'm here. I could see her through the glass - lots of glass. She came out and after a few minutes Nyoman and I left with the papers to fill out and she'd gone over it with me and him listening to clarify anything I didn't get. In and out in five minutes and the lines didn't seem to have moved that much. Connections are always helpful. - dc

First post using blogger

My computer hard drive got all screwed up.
It happened when MS Windows 8.1 upgrade was uploading. I didn't seem to have any choice and didn't have time to leave enough room on the hard drive which also didn't occur to me. The upgrade didn't work and the computer got stuck trying revert to prior Windows and a tech guy here found the HD was damaged. I'd been having a number of error messages and spontaneous reboots so that made sense. Didn't loose any data - had it all backed up anyway including what I'd just done, an old habit. But lost programs. Fortunately I'm in Indonesia and he's putting all the programs I had that I couldn't replace back on plus some others. And a terabyte hard drive. He's also got the new SSD sold state hard drives and showed me how much faster they are and I'm considering getting a small one for a 2nd computer for work or play that could use more speed. I'm not used to having just one computer. So that's what's happening here. Now I've got to start to figure out how to use the Blogger. My associate Peter Ford who runs shunryusuzuki.com is urging me to run cuke off it so I'd not be dependent on any particular computer. We'll see what happens. - DC